Nepal-Tibet floods: Glacier instability may trigger more cascading disasters, Chinese official warns

September 3, 2026 6:13 PM

Nepal-Tibet floods: Glacier instability may trigger more cascading disasters, Chinese official warns

Glaciers across the Tibetan Plateau are likely to become increasingly unstable, raising the risk of more collapses and cascading disasters similar to last week's deadly flash floods along the Nepal-Tibet border, a senior Chinese climate official has warned. Gao Rong, deputy director of China's National Climate Centre, said the Tibetan Plateau had lost around 24 per cent of its glacier area over the past six decades, with about 7,000 small glaciers disappearing completely. “Looking ahead, the...

World’s glaciers are losing record ice as global temperatures climb, U.N. says

March 21, 2025 9:17 AM

World’s glaciers are losing record ice as global temperatures climb, U.N. says

Glaciers around the globe are disappearing faster than ever, with the last three-year period seeing the largest glacial mass loss on record, according to a UNESCO report released on Friday. The 9,000 gigatons of ice lost from glaciers since 1975 are roughly equivalent to "an ice block the size of Germany with the thickness of 25 meters," Michael Zemp, director of the Switzerland-based World Glacier Monitoring Service, said during a press conference announcing the report at the UN headquarters i...

Bolivian scientists to track glacial changes at high speed with new equipment

June 6, 2024 5:19 PM

Bolivian scientists to track glacial changes at high speed with new equipment

Scientists in Bolivia are hoping to track glacial changes at lightning speed. New scientific equipment being installed at the country's Huayna Potosi mountain peak will provide real-time measurements of glaciers' mass compared to much slower older methods. Edson Ramirez, a glaciologist at Bolivia's Higher University of San Andres, said the equipment could make hourly measurements of glacial mass compared to classic glacialogy methods capable of monthly or yearly readings. "This time we are do...